Donald Trump granted a presidential pardon to Conrad Black, the disgraced former newspaper publisher who just happened to write and release a positive biography of Trump last year.

Black was the head of a major newspaper publishing group Hollinger International that included London's Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post, and the now-faded Chicago Sun-Times.  He was convicted in 2007 of four felonies related to looting the company and using it as his personal piggy bank, gutting the Chicago newspaper in particular despite its stellar line-up of acclaimed reporters, popular columnists, and nationally known feature writers.  The Sun-Times never fully recovered from being plundered; and although it still exists as a shadow of its former self, the mismanagement effectively diminished Chicago from a city supporting several newspapers to having only one major daily newspaper. 

Courts overturned two of Black's convictions upon appeal, and the US deported Black after he served three and a half years in prison.  The scandal caused the UK to pull his peerage, meaning the Canadian-born is no longer known as "Lord Black" - although he once claimed he could go back to the UK House of Lords as a voting member at any time.

Since then, Conrad Black has kept under the radar building bridges to Trump's world.  He sold the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper's iconic mid-century building to Donald Trump for another god-awful eyesore Trump Tower.  Last year, Black published his book "Donald Trump: A President LIke No Other" in which he lavished praise upon his friend.  Black has written several glowing columns for conservative publications about Trump, and just a day before he was pardon had a piece in the National Review claiming, "Smooth Sailing Ahead For Trump."